Archives: Quotes
Quote
. . .You can . . . make A.A. itself your ‘Higher power.’ Here’s a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. . . . many members . . . have crossed the threshold just this way. . . . their faith broadened and deepened. . . . transformed, they came to believe in a Higher Power. . . .
We have found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.
We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. . . . search diligently within yourself. . . . With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.
. . . if only men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in the common
Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.
The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.
The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion-well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.
This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal power-that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God.